


Mr. Fell

by AMarguerite



Category: Good Omens (TV), Good Omens - Neil Gaiman & Terry Pratchett
Genre: Alternate Universe - Role Reversal, Other, Role Reversal
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-07-28
Packaged: 2020-07-11 19:36:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 11,994
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19933393
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AMarguerite/pseuds/AMarguerite
Summary: Based on tumblr user weaver-z's idea that a fallen Aziraphale would basically be Miles Maitland from 'Bright Young Things.' A different angel of the Eastern Gate encounters a different wily serpent.





	1. Chapter 1

It was a nice day. All the days had been nice so far. But there were some new gray things on the horizon. The angel of the Eastern Gate eyed them, trying to recall what they were. He was so absorbed in this, he didn’t notice a black adder slithering desperately past him until the scales brushed his ankles.

The angel yelped and jumped up, wings beating furiously; but seeing it was only a snake from the garden, he landed again. “I don’t think you want to go out there, mate. There’s a thing called  _ rain  _ coming and you won’t like it.”

The snake looked as confused as it is possible for a snake to look.

The angel pointed upwards. “Those things. I think they’re rain.” He turned to look again. “No wait, they’re  _ clouds _ , and they cause rain.”

“What is rain?” asked the snake.

“Dunno,” said the angel, apologetically. “I should’ve paid more attention at interdimensional staff meetings.” He frowned. “Oh, the people will be out in it. That’s tough on them, specially since they’re already dealing with that lion there.”

“Do you really think,” the snake asked, coiling up nervously at the angel’s feet, “that they really can’t return? They’re cast out  _ forever _ ?”

“That was the staff memo.” The angel weighed the flaming sword in his hand. 

“Even if they didn’t mean it?”

“One moment.” The angel threw the flaming sword in a way swords really should not be thrown. But he’d never had a sword before; he’d been on spear duty during the Rebellion. He expected all weapons to act like spears and so they did. The sword landed with a sizzle in the middle of what had been a lion. The angel hurriedly turned back to the snake. “What was that? The humans didn’t mean it? Actually….” He frowned. “Didn’t a snake tempt Eve into it?”

The snake abruptly turned into a man-shaped being with a riot of curls, parted to the side. “Oh dear,” the former snake said, rather fretfully. “I never meant to! I never meant for the first brunch to end in such  _ disaster. _ ”

The angel of the Eastern Gate gave what, in a lesser creature, would have been called an incoherent gurgle of surprise. 

“We were having  _ such  _ a nice time,” the demon exclaimed. “And really, is it Eve’s fault, or  _ my  _ fault that everything in the garden is in the buffet except  _ one?  _ It’s so dreadfully hard to keep track. And if it really was that bad to eat, it should have been on the… moon or someplace.”

“Couldn’t be on the moon,” said the angel, interested despite himself. “No atmosphere on the moon. Bad for the trees.” 

“Well, somewhere else, then. But anyway—” 

The angel was still thinking about the moon. “Maybe Mars? There’s more atmosphere on that one, and water. Trees need water.” He looked pleased with himself for recalling this pertinent arboreal fact. He’d spent most of his time during creation making stars. Trees were new to him. 

The demon shifted his weight, attempting to determine what, if anything, hip joints were supposed to do. As a noncorporeal being of pure energy he hadn’t had to worry about that sort of thing, nor did he have to as a snake. He contemplated turning back into a snake, but he was rather sure God had told the other angels to be on the lookout for a wily serpent. It was much better to be a guileless-looking man-shaped being. “Well it shouldn’t have been  _ here _ , that’s my point. And it’s not right of God to cast them out. The poor dears. They didn’t mean it, and I can’t see how what they did was so very wrong.” 

“You wouldn’t,” said the angel, withdrawing a little. “You’re a demon.” 

“I  _ was _ an angel,” said the demon, rather sadly, and mostly to himself. He glanced sharply at the angel. “And no need to get all holier than thou, my dear, I remember seeing you at Lucifer’s little parties, asking  _ questions _ . It’s a wonder  _ you  _ didn’t fall with the rest of us.”

“Asking questions isn’t what makes you fall,” protested the angel, with the air of one who has been clinging to this idea rather desperately. “It’s trying to put yourself in the place of God.”

“I never did!” 

“You planned some of those little parties,” objected the angel. “Head Office calls that aiding and abetting.”

“And very  _ good  _ parties they were too,” said the demon, defiantly. “Beelzebub once worked in R and D on  _ fruit _ . You wouldn’t believe what she could get me.”

“They were,” agreed the angel, feeling he had gotten sidetracked again, “but it was more than that. I know I saw you and Lucifer mingling spirits. Where is he? You always used to be with him.”

The demon ruffled its white wings in a fussy, rather nervous way. “He’s ruling hell right now. It’s a frightfully new place. Lots to do. Sulfur pits to drain. That sort of thing. Terribly boring.”

“Why aren’t you helping then?” 

The demon stiffened. “If you  _ must  _ know, we— well, I told him he wasn’t the angel I’d fallen for anymore, and he, um. He didn't much like that. We thought it would be better to part ways." 

“ _ What? _ ”

“It’s quite a lot of strain on a relationship, being cast out from heaven! It really changes one. I dragged myself out of the pit and found I was a snake, for instance. And Beelzebub was just a swarm of flies! And Lucifer….” He shuddered delicately. “You’d hardly recognize him. I treated him very nicely, you know, and was ever so kind as he brooded on and on and  _ on,  _ about whether it was better to reign in Hell or serve in heaven.  So dull-making, darling, you have no idea. I would have torn my hair out if I'd had hair or hands. But again, snake.”

“So you came up to… win him back?”

“I would  _ never  _ take him back. I have  _ standards _ .” The demon rearranged his wings and folded his hands before him, a little nervous affectation. “I just— it was… awkward, being in hell, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about with the humans. They are very charming creatures. Eve and I were having a simply  _ marvelous _ time until we forgot about the apple being forbidden.” 

The angel did not know how to react to the news that the demon beside him had dumped the devil himself and come up to befriend the humans. The angel was tired— so very, very tired— from the Great War in Heaven. Earlier that day, he’d accidentally waved the flaming sword too much while trying to do something cool with it, and sliced a dove in half. The scent of singed feathers had frozen him in place. He’d felt certain he was back at war again— the hosts assembling, the great noisy guns, the sight of his friends falling, and the other angels around him wondering why he was not among the revolting ones.

“Oh,” said the demon, nervously, jolting the angel out of his thoughts. “Is this rain? Is it holy?”

The angel automatically covered the demon with his wing. “I don’t know, um... I suppose I can’t call you Aziraphale anymore.” 

The demon hadn’t heard. He’d been staring worriedly at the humans, who had taken the flaming sword and were running for some caves. “Why couldn’t they be allowed to stay? It was just one mistake, and they’re sorry for it. It’s just  _ cruel _ .” 

“They can have the sword for the night,” said the angel, who felt better for no longer having a weapon. “This rain is very cold. But what should I call you?”

The demon blinked up at him. “Oh. Well I— I never chose a name. I thought….” He tossed his curls out of his face. “It hardly matters what I thought. It was wrong. Call me Mr. Fell.”

The angel blinked. “You sure? Bit on the nose, that.”

“I don’t see any reason,” said the demon, with a sort of hard, defiant glitter, “to pretend I’m anything other than I am.” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to Vitreous_Humor for the enormous help with the plot and with the idea of Aziraphale's possessive streak!

The demons Hastur and Ligur had been looking forward to a good bit of lurking, but were rather bewildered to find this impossible. They came up from under the earth to find their abandoned graveyard was instead the location of a smashingly good party. 

“What’s all this then?” asked Hastur. 

“A buffet?” asked Ligur, hopefully. "They say Fell puts on a good spread."

Mr. Fell swanned through the crowd towards them. He looked as if he had inspired Dorian Gray and, in fact, he had. There was no one who looked quite so charmingly cherubic while promising all manner of sin, and who dressed with such eccentric good taste while doing so. He loudly proclaimed his love for vintage clothing, in a way that seemed deliberate and classy but was really because he was fussy about his clothes and took decades to decide on what to add to his wardrobe. Any human crossing his path tended to think of Mr. Fell as one of a long line of intelligent, very  _ English _ dandies, without realizing he had been this way before there had ever been an England. Mr. Fell didn’t mind. England often had to import the raw materials for its most famous raconteurs and wits from elsewhere. Erie or Eden, what difference did it make? And dear, let’s stop talking about him, what about  _ you _ ? Do tell him what you’re doing at this charming little gathering, and where you came from, and where you want to go, and whether or not you’d like to have your deepest, most secret desire given to you, right here and now. Mr. Fell is  _ very  _ well connected. You have only to say what you want to have it. Tempted? Well, Mr. Fell will say, with a smile of equal parts charm, wickedness, and understanding. You know what they say. The only way to get rid of a temptation is to give into it.

“Hallo my dears,” Mr. Fell told his fellow demons, handing them glasses of champagne. “I just had to bring some people along with me. Do you mind  _ awfully _ ?”

“This is a secret meeting!” Hastur exclaimed. “In a graveyard!”

“Yes, I told them that,” said Mr. Fell, apologetically. “They thought it was very atmospheric.”

“They aren’t the buffet?” Ligur asked regretfully. He liked the champagne fine, but you could taste the care it was made with, and he preferred his human foods flavored with terror. 

Mr. Fell blinked at him. “My word—  _ no _ , Ligur. Why are you so eager to eat the humans anyhow? It’s so  _ Donner party _ , and that is  _ not  _ the sort of party one wishes to have associated with one.”

“Get them out of here,” said Hastur, through gritted teeth. “We have occult business!”

Mr. Fell sighed, but turned and clapped his hands. “So sorry darlings, you must go. Party’s over.”

“But why Ezra?” cried one human.

“I’ve got to make a deal with some devils, darling, and they’re ever so shy. You wicked creatures, you embarrass them.”

Hastur was about to protest that you couldn’t just tell humans you were a demon like that, but the humans all laughed and pouted and got into fancy cars that took them away. They left all their trash, which was some consolation, and Ligur was happy to discover someone had brought with them a hamper of sandwiches made exclusively from illegally hunted endangered animals. This was more like it. He sat down to feast.

“Can I get you anything Hastur?” asked Mr. Fell, solicitous. “You’ve hardly touched your bubbly. Oh!” He’d spotted the wicker basket at Hastur’s feet. “My dear, I didn’t know you’d been planning a picnic! You naughty thing, never a  _ word  _ to me—"

“It’s the Antichrist.”

“Oh Hastur my dear, how dreary-making you are, saying that’s the Antichrist! How grim, how ghastly, how _ gothic _ .” He looked at Hastur with a reproachful  _ moue _ . “Just because I spoiled your plans, doesn’t mean—”

Hastur felt like this meeting was fast spinning out of his control. He often got that feeling around Mr. Fell. “Now that we art all here, let us recount the deeds of the day!”

Mr. Fell clapped his hands together. “Oh goodie!  _ Do  _ let me go first. You’ll get  _ such _ a kick out of the party I went to in Belgravia, my dears.”

“Well, I—” Hastur began.

Me. Fell pulled a diary out his pocket and flipped through the pages. “Where to start, where to start— oh how dizzy-making! You’ll never _believe_ what a day I had.” With that the demon Mr. Fell, known to the glitterati of London as Ezra Fell, an eccentric Quentin Crisp raconteur one must always have at parties, who appeared to make his living by having an eccentric little shop in Soho that was in all probability just a front for coke dealing, began in on a series of improbable meetings, temptations, and hedonistic dealings that made _The Daily Mail’s_ articles seem dull and unimaginative. Hastur and Ligur, who still prided themselves on the craftsmanship of devoting decades to the temptation of one soul, frequently had their brains rattled by Ezra’s reports. The rambling length of them, stuffed chock-a-block with references to famous people and deadly sins, certainly seemed impressive, but neither of them had ever once understood them, even back in the Beginning when there were only two people on earth to tempt. 

“But enough about me,” concluded Mr. Fell, with a depreciating laugh. “What about you two?”

“I… tempted a politician?” said Ligur. “Took a bribe. Within a year, he shall be ours.”

Mr. Fell patted his shoulder in a manner meant to be encouraging, but was deeply demoralizing. “That’s a  _ very _ good start. Soon you’ll work your way up and there’s no end to the creative sins you can tempt them into. Why, I once got a future MP to put his thing-a-ling into a dead pig’s mouth!” 

Ligur felt suddenly despondent. Getting a politician to take  _ a bribe _ ? There was nothing easier! What was he, an imp on his first assignment? (1)

“I tempted a priest,” said Hatsur. “He saw the pretty girls walking in the sun. I planted doubt in his mind. He would have been a saint, but within a decade he will be ours.” He looked at Mr. Fell and glowered. “ _ What _ .”

“Just… pretty girls, walking in the sun?” Mr. Fell pursed his lips. “My dear, if you ever need an invitation to a  _ real  _ party, where he’ll see much more than pretty girls  _ walking _ , you need only ask. I know, I know, they’re very exclusive, but if you mention my name, then—”

“I’m sticking to the plan I gave Head Office,” said Hastur, through gritted teeth. 

Mr. Fell pursed his lips. “Alright. Just thought I’d save you some time. Ten years on one soul is, ummmm. Well. It takes as long as it takes, I suppose.”

Hastur ground his teeth. “ _ Some  _ of us take pride in craftmanship.”

This flew so far over Mr. Fell’s head it hit a tree on the other side of the cemetery. “ _ Yes _ , it is shocking what shoddy work is going on these days. Why, I remember running into this one succubus at a party at Elton John’s not two decades ago, and I mean  _ really _ . A  _ succubus _ . At one of Elton John’s parties! It’s like they don’t do their research any longer! How do they think they’re going to successfully tempt anyone if they don’t know what that person wants? It was ever so demoralizing for the poor lamb. I did feel sorry for her but  _ really _ . Know your audience.” 

Hastur ground his teeth to a fine powder. “Our master has a task for you.”

_ That  _ at last gave Mr. Fell pause. He generally didn’t get orders. As long as he turned in the right paperwork (not that anyone could understand his versions of them), he was generally left to float from party to party, lovingly gathering up condemned souls to his exquisitely clad breast, before passing them onto Satan. On occasion Beelzebub would randomly assign him some task so zzzzzhe could stop listening to a detailed inventory of every time Mr. Fell used a demonic miracle to get a taxi at 3am, or an incubus or succubus would ask for his help on a group project, but inventing original sin— however accidentally— meant that he was generally trusted to get his work done however he saw fit. And he and Satan avoided interacting as much as possible. “Oh… really? What, er. What does he have in mind?”

Hastur handed over the wicker basket. 

Mr. Fell opened it and then slammed it shut. He turned very pale. “Oh my word. Is this…?”

“Yes,” said Hastur, smugly.

“It’s really….”

“Yes,” agreed Hastur and Ligur.

“It’s not really my scene,” protested Mr. Fell. “What on earth am I going to do with a baby? Check him in the cloakroom at Victoria Station when I go off to the party I’ve promised to attend?”

“Your scene,” said Hastur. “Your staring role. Ligur here would give his right arm for a chance like this.”

“Well, someone’s right arm,” agreed Ligur. He’d quite like to give Mr. Fell’s, after thinking up Piggate before Ligur could. 

“Why  _ me _ ?” Ezra asked desperately.

Hastur and Ligur smirked. It was a terrifying synchronized display. 

“You’ve been up here the longest,” said Hastur, meaningfully. 

Ezra faked a laugh. “My  _ dear _ , I never meant to be away this long, but you know, at one farewell party you suddenly find yourself promising to attend half a dozen more, and then—” He suddenly recalled why he had been sent topside in the first place. “Oh dear me. No, no, no. It’s not—”

“A little birdy told him,” said Ligur, “just what you’ve been saying up here.”

“I’m sorry,  _ who _ ?”

Ligur grinned. It was not a pleasant sight. “One of the succubi? Form of a cassowary?”

Ezra blanched. It took an enormous effort not to shift back into a snake and curl up in a scaly ball of acute embarrassment. “Oh. Oh dear me. But really, I can’t be blamed for what the humans say when I mention that my ex was the devil himself. I’m always very honest. It’s hardly my fault what they make of it.”

Ligur said, smugly, “Here’s your way of making amends before the big push. Sign here.” He held out a clipboard, with a form in triplicate. 

Mr. Fell awkwardly shifted the basket into his left hand and licked his right pointer finger. He traced an ancient sigil that sparked hellfire on each form. 

“You’ll receive your instructions shortly,” said Hastur, and he and Ligur sunk into the mud of the graveyard. Their evil grins were the last to vanish. 

Ezra Fell stood alone in the graveyard, an out of place figure holding a picnic basket in his nicely manicured hands, with his vintage Burberry overcoat draped over his shoulders like a cape. It had begun to rain which, he thought tetchily, was all of a piece. It made an infernal sort of sense. If situations had been reversed, he would certainly palm off his evil offspring on his ex. It was a diabolical, ‘fuck you, look at how  _ well _ I’ve been doing since we broke up, I’ve moved on, I’ve produced the Adversary, Destroyer of Worlds, Angel of the Bottomless Pit. What have  _ you  _ been doing with your immortal life?’

‘Going to some _ rather  _ magnificent parties,’ though Ezra, with a sniff. 

He looked down at the basket, as the rain began to turn his shock of blond curls to frizz. 

Ezra would very much like to  _ keep  _ going to those rather magnificent parties. He’d been cast out of heaven and flounced out of hell. Neither place had really been his  _ scene. _ He’d been on earth since the beginning and built himself a home here, among all the dear people, as hungry for love as—

His mind skidded away from this, like a Pomeranian turning a tight corner on a hardwood floor. 

Unlike all other demons, Ezra wasn’t really working towards Armageddon. He liked the world. He never wanted it to end. Yes, he did tempt and secure souls and all, but he did it so he had the power to make their bright, sparking mayfly lives were full of absolutely everything they desired. (2) He  _ loved  _ his doomed souls. Perhaps it was in a twisted, possessive sort of way, but they were  _ his _ and he took care of everything that was  _ his.  _

The appearance of the Antichrist meant the end of all the parties, all the people, the port-in-a-storm he’d made of the world.

But… if there was no Antichrist….

Ezra lifted the lid off the basket. 

The Destroyer of Worlds was sucking his thumb.

“Oh…  _ bother _ ,” said Ezra fretfully. Every evil impulse was telling him to get on with it, every selfish impulse was telling him to kill the child, and every impulse he did not want to name told him, ‘this is an innocent child, who has done nothing. Do you really want to destroy him over the plans other people have for him?’

“You’re my evil ex’s,” said Ezra. 

The baby neither understood or cared. It was a baby.

“Oh… oh  _ sod  _ it all.” Ezra snapped his fingers and a taxi driver suddenly found himself driving very far out of his usual London route to an abandoned graveyard. Ezra hailed it, got in, and gave the man an address rather far from Mayfair and SoHo, on Hampstead Heath. 

The taxi driver’s confusion at this address was so palpable, Ezra said, “I’ve a sudden desire to hear a nightingale, my dear.”

“What?”

“The poet Keats… "Ode to a Nightingale?" Do tell me that means  _ something  _ to you.”

The taxi driver did not understand this allusion. “But why Hampstead Heath, sir, if you want to hear a nightingale?”

“Because you can’t hear them sing in Berkeley Square,” said the demon, sourly. “Just unlock the back door, please. It’s hideously wet out here and my hair’s a perfect fright.” 

  1. It was not clear exactly how getting a future politician to put his genitals inside of a roast pig would secure souls for Satan, but it sounded so devilishly impressive Ligur forgot about this. 
  2. This wasn’t strictly Good for them—demonic miracles tended to have a ‘be careful what you wish for’ quality to them’— but they all got exactly what they asked Ezra for. 




	3. Chapter 3

If Ezra was honest with himself— which he seldom was— he had A Type, and that type tended to be questioning angels who liked to wear black and brood. One could go too far in the brooding, but when Ezra thought about it— which he seldom did— he supposed he liked seeing how differently someone else’s mind worked. The ethereal beings he was drawn to dove deep into the streams of thought upon which he chose to punt, with a picnic basket and a bottle of bubbly. 

The former angel of the Eastern Gate, and current principality of England, was just one of those. He’d gotten a house on Hampstead Heath when, shaken terribly by the Battle of Waterloo, he’d made a go of Romanticism. The angel had had many names over the years, changing it to fit the times, and the culture of whatever new regiment he had been assigned to, but currently it was Sergeant Anthony Crowley. 

Despite this fact, the angel always thought of himself as Corviel.

On this particular dark and stormy night, portending the end of the world, Corviel was taking what he absolutely refused to call a depression nap in a hammock in his victory garden. He had planted the garden during the second world war, though no garden in England looked quite like it. In fact, there wasn’t a garden like it anywhere except Eden. Corviel liked plants but hadn’t any notion of ‘appropriate climates’ or ‘growing seasons’ so there were apple and orange trees somewhat baffledly coexisting, and somehow thriving on being gently misted whenever Corviel remembered to do it. But he expected the plants to thrive and thrive continually, so thrive they did. 

He was roused from his fitful slumbers by the ringing of the doorbell. 

He tried ignoring it, but it wasn’t going away. Instead, there was now hammering on the door too. 

And now a familiar voice was caroling out, “Daaaahling, I know you’re in there! The Bentley’s outside. Come on, my dear, open the door!”

Corviel thought about opening the door himself but that would require getting out of the hammock and then walking to the back door and  _ then _ through the house and  _ then _ to the front door and that was so much  _ work  _ when he was only going to be deployed with British troops to Iraq again soon. He waved a hand lazily. All the doors unlocked, giving Ezra a view straight through the house, to where Corviel was about to go back to sleep again. 

“My dear, you won’t _believe_ the evening I’m having,” said Ezra, squelching through the house towards the garden. 

“Ngk?” asked Corviel groggily. 

“Wakey wakey,” said Ezra brightly. He traipsed into the garden with the stagey grace of a dancer walking into position, despite the fact that it was raining heavily, and he carried no umbrella. “Are we still feeling sad about that new war? Does mother need to buy you a new car?”

After the First World War, Corviel had been so depressed he’d slept for five years straight, at which point Ezra woke him, dragged him to parties, and eventually grew so desperate over Corviel’s listlessness, bought him a Bentley. Corviel wished it hadn’t been as effective a bribe as it was, since he felt it sent the wrong message about materiality. But he loved the inventiveness of humans, loved seeing how they fitted things together to make new things, to discover new truths of the universe. He could interest himself in these things enough to pull himself out of the morass of unhappiness he often fell into. 

... also the car went ‘zoom’ and he could fly without having to sprout wings (which was now frowned upon), or get up in a plane (which he associated with his time in the first world war, and by some horrible mental loop of associations, The War). 

“I like the Bentley,” said Corviel. “You don’t get the kind of performance out of a modern car as you do with the old girl, even if she does tend to turn anything left in there too long into Queen. I left my phone in there once, when I was—” taking a depression nap “—away for a fortnight, and every single song in my iTunes was by Queen.” He blinked. It was very wet outside the minicanopy the trees had lovingly produced for him; Ezra’s fair hair was plastered to his skull. It occurred to Corviel that Ezra wasn’t holding an umbrella. Why? Corviel spotted the basket in Ezra’s hand and felt his spirits momentarily lift. “Are we going on a midnight picnic? Not quite the weather for it here, but I did hear there was a meteor shower you could see over Stockholm around two in the morning.”

Ezra had an overcoat draped over his shoulders, the sleeves hanging down like wingtips; he fussily shifted the basket to one hand, and pulled the collar in at his throat. “Not really, no. Look, my dear, this is a bit of a break in tradition, but I am afraid business must come before pleasure.” He shuddered. “I can’t believe I said that. Horrible. Fancy a quickie before I tell you about the contents of this basket?”

“Get thee behind me foul fiend,” said Corviel, out of habit rather than any real desire to refuse. He sometimes felt that habit was the only thing that was really angelic about him anymore. 

“Not my  _ preferred  _ position, but if you insist....”

“No, I mean, you’ve done your tempting. We can move on. Tell me what’s happened?”

Ezra let out a nervous laugh, a little too high and a little too sharp. “So boring, really, but I ahhhh… I have found myself in a bit of a pickle.”

“They found out about the Arrangement?” Corviel bolted upright in the hammock, which was a bad idea. It wrapped him up in an unsteady cocoon and then dumped him out onto the ground.

“I hardly think I’d be standing here if they did,” replied Ezra. “No, no, dear, it’s just uhm… well. Look.”

He set down the basket and withdrew a sleeping baby.

Corviel stared. All he could think to do was say, with a defensive, dark humor, “Well it’s not mine, demon, I’ve never had you.”

Ezra rolled his eyes. “Though no fault of  _ mine _ . I just offered. _Again._ A fellow less gracious than myself might take offense one of these days. And it isn’t mine. It’s my ex’s.” 

“Which?”

Ezra gave him a Look. 

“That’s  _ the son of Satan _ ?” 

“Yes, and I’ll tell you all about it, but can we do it somewhere a little less damp?”

Panic jolted Corviel out of the drowsy numbness he’d been dwelling in all day. He scrambled into the house. As army habits from earlier centuries died hard, he set about making tea. “Army char,” he muttered, and even though he hadn’t been food shopping in several months, found some PG Tips in a cupboard. “So… that’s the Antichrist.”

“Yes,” said Ezra, setting the basket on the kitchen table. “Don’t turn on the telly or the radio or anything, dear. I’m awaiting instruction. I broke the taxi driver’s radio so I wouldn’t get it yet.”

The kettle hadn’t been plugged in, but it still boiled. 

Corviel set about finding mugs. “Why you?”

“I don’t know  _ why _ ,” said Ezra pettishly, as Corviel made him tea. “I mean, I  _ do _ , it’s a very nasty piece of revenge, but I don't deserve it. I was very nice to him after he first fell and I’ve avoided him ever since.” 

“Well,” said Corviel, whose anxiety over this new situation was beginning to manifest as sarcasm. “Could be that for the past six millenia, you’ve been telling everyone you meet that your ex was literally the devil himself and you dumped him. Just a wild guess.”

“But I did! He’d let himself go. You should see him now, totally unrecognizable. No one would consider him the light bringer. And so  _ broody,  _ so  _ beastly _ .” Ezra shuddered delicately.

“Why now?”

“Haven’t the foggiest, darling. But in eleven years everything’s set to go to hell. All the wheels in motion and things.” Ezra waved these details away. “Milk and sugar, dear—”

“I know how you take your tea,” said Corviel irritably. He gave Ezra a cup and then irritably miracled up a bottle, and filled it with the milk that had been surprised to find itself in his otherwise empty fridge. “Do Antichrists take bottles?”

“Oh, don’t wake it,” exclaimed Ezra. 

“What should I be doing with it?” Corviel asked, a little wildly. “Sing it a celestial harmony to help it into a deeper sleep? Change its nappy?” 

“Well,” said Ezra, in a brittle, overbright voice, like shattered stained glass, “I was thinking— I don’t particularly want the world to end. I’m not a fighter. During the war in heaven I just sort of hung back wringing my hands. And you were on the front lines.”

Corviel felt suddenly very cold. He hunched over his mug of tea. “Yeah. And?”

“And,” said Ezra, “if we ran into each other— why it would make sense, wouldn’t it, that you’d easily defeat me?” 

“I suppose?”

“And of course, you’d take what I was guarding, thinking that I’d kidnapped a baby or something, only to realize it was the Antichrist… and then you’d have to call it in, wouldn’t you?”

Corviel began to understand Ezra’s plan. “Right. I’d have to call it in and then— and then there wouldn’t be a war because it would be ended before it started.” 

Ezra smiled. “Yes, exactly. So um, I surrender?”

“Right,” said Corviel, flooded with relief. “You’re my prisoner now, demon. Don’t try to escape.”

“Wouldn’t dream of it, darling,” said Ezra, looking relieved himself. “Not in this gale, at least.” He snapped his fingers and the rain gently steamed out of his clothes and hair. “The prisoner can have access to a mirror, yes? I’m sure that’s in the Geneva conventions.”

“One in the bathroom,” said Corviel, from the cabinet under the sink, where he stored the candles. 

Ezra nodded. “Let’s say I tried to steal your car and you caught me and trapped me in the bathroom. Is that dramatic enough for Head Office?”

“I hope so.” It was the work of a few minutes to draw the circle, arrange the candles, and fold his hands in prayer. “This is the principality Corviel, reporting in, and I’ve got an important update about the Apocalypse.” 

The air within the circle glowed white. Then an ethereal voice rang out: “ _ Your prayer is important to us. Please hold. _ ”

Corviel had shut his eyes to pray; he opened one in mild disbelief. 

“ _ Cliiiiiimb eeeeeeeevery mountaaaaaaain,”  _ the white glow sang out. “ _ Search high and looooow. Foooollow eeeeevery byyyywaaaaay. Every path you rooooaaaam— _ ’

“Look, I captured a demon who claims to have the Antichrist,” interrupted Corviel, who had always hated the hold music. “I’ll talk to any archangel.”

The white glow paused. “ _Your prayer is important to us,_ ” it said. “ _Please hold._ ”

“Oh my God,” said Corviel, dragging his hands down his face. 

“ _ Cliiiiiimb eeeeeeeevery mountaaaaaaain— _ hello?”

The glow dissolved, and the Archangel Gabriel’s face suddenly floated within the circle.

“Gabriel!” Thank God it hadn’t been Michael. Corviel was certain that every time Michael saw him, she saw how bad of a soldier he’d become, how habit and inertia was supplying the place of true discipline. “It’s Corviel, sir!”

“I know,” said Gabriel, patiently. “Metatron says you captured a demon? That’s commendable but that can wait for the usual report—”

“But he had the Antichrist!” Corviel lunged for the basket and withdrew the baby. “The demon Fell was trying to steal my car to deliver the Antichrist to an unsuspecting pair of human parents.” 

Gabriel blinked his purple eyes. 

Corviel bit back a snarky comment about how unnecessary they looked. He remembered when Gabriel had just dug them out of Elizabeth Taylor’s face and swanned around the annual Christmas party batting them at everyone. 

“Hunh,” said Gabriel. “I’ll come down to investigate myself.”

The white light vanished. Corviel tucked the baby, who was grizzling gently in its sleep, against his shoulder and scuffed at the circle with the heel of his untied combat boot. With a faint displacement of air, Gabriel popped up in Corviel’s kitchen. 

He was dressed in a cashmere suit, and eyed Corviel’s black v-neck t-shirt, dogtags, and black skinny jeans with distaste. 

“The demon Fell woke me, sir,” said Corviel, saluting awkwardly. “Sudden-like, sir.”

“I see that,” said Gabriel. “And I see you have a baby— but no horns. Any hooves?”

Corviel handed over the baby.

Gabriel gingerly took it and held it out at arms length, so that the baby’s normal human limbs were visible. “Hm. Doesn’t  _ look  _ like the Antichrist, but with the opposition, appearances are meant to be deceiving. Where is the demon Fell?”

“I have him trapped in my bathroom.”

Gabriel squinted at the Antichrist and sniffed the air suspiciously. “Whew! There’s that whiff of brimstone. Definitely the Antichrist.”

“I think he’s, uh, filled his nappy, sir,” said Corviel. 

“He’s the Antichrist. He’s filled his  _ whole corporation _ with evil.” Gabriel passed the baby back. “Excellent job, Corviel. I’ll be sure to tell Michael of your outstanding work. This is a real feather in your wing. But go let the demon Fell out of your bathroom, give him the child back, and let him take your car.”

Corviel had been miracling away the messy nappy and replacing it with a clean one, and so felt sure he’d been too distracted to hear properly. “Uh. I understand turning the other cheek, sir, I read the memo about it, but… this seems excessive? And shouldn’t we stop him? If we do, there’s no Armageddon.”

“Exactly.”

Corviel often did not understand top brass, but never at such close quarters. “But it’s… good if we stop Armageddon. Isn’t it, sir?”

“Not really,” said Gabriel. He put his hands on Corviel’s shoulders and squeezed, just enough to be painful. “Look, I know it’s tough for a footsoldier like you to understand, but Good isn’t stopping a war. It’s  _ winning  _ a war. But to win a war, there has to  _ be  _ a war. And for there to be a war, there has to be an Antichrist. So let the demon Fell get on with his work.” 

Corviel felt a sense of dizzy unreality sweep over him. “So there’s— there’s going to be a... another Great War in Heaven.”

“No, there’s going to be a Greater War in Heaven. It’ll make the first one look like a skirmish.” Gabriel clapped Corviel on the shoulders again before releasing them. “Now, let’s let the demon get on with his work shall we?”

Gabriel snapped his fingers and the bathroom door opened. 

Ezra had been primping in front of the mirror, sighing over the state of his curls, but abruptly miracled himself into chains. “Oh dearie me,” said Ezra. “I have been captured by the forces of good.” 

“Begone demon,” said Gabriel, “and take this hellspawn with you!”

With that, the chains fell off, and Gabriel disappeared in a thunderclap. 

Ezra blinked. “I really don’t understand what’s just happened.”

Corviel didn’t either. He put the Antichrist back into the basket. His hands were shaking. Why were they shaking? Corviel knew he didn’t need to breathe but somehow he was breathing too quickly and the world was somehow shrinking down and into him—

“My dear, are you quite alright?” Ezra’s question seemed to come from him at a distance. Corviel shut his eyes against the sudden wave of dizziness and nausea. His human body felt too cold and small, it was squeezing his angelic essence, crushing it— 

When Corviel became aware of anything besides overwhelming white-out panic, some minutes, or perhaps some days later, he was on the kitchen floor, his cheek on something plush and soft, with something equally soft brushing his sweaty hair off his face. 

He had vague memories of this having happened before, but only ever when a battle was over, and Ezra had taken him away from it. A sense of strange calm descended on him. He was safe, and away from fighting. It was going to be alright. Someone else was going to look after his corporation, and do it better than he did himself and it was all going to be alright. Ezra was going to wrap him up in silk and feathers and keep him nice and cozy and  _ safe _ , and there wasn’t going to be any sort of that awful warlike nastiness—

Then Corviel recalled what Gabriel said and the spell was broken. 

He could hear Ezra’s soft temptations, instead of feel them; Corviel groaned and gave into a different sort of temptation by hiding his face in Ezra’s lap. “You don’t have to keep tempting me.” 

“I had to do something,” said Ezra, sounding worried. “My dear, I thought you were going to discorporate on the spot if I didn’t lure you back to the land of the living. What did Gabriel tell you?”

“They’re not, it’s not—” He swallowed. His throat made a dry clicking sound. “They  _ want  _ war.” 

“Oh,” said Ezra, in the sort of tone people used when they felt like they ought to say something, but didn’t know what.

“Yup.”

Ezra kept petting his hair. Corviel felt like he ought to say something about it, but he didn’t want it to stop. He was so rarely touched like this. He couldn’t recall the last time anyone had touched this corporation except violently or clinically, or in any context but that of war. Eventually he made himself say, “I’ve been ordered to let you take my car and get on with it.”

“Alright, dear, but you’re coming with me,” said Ezra, with a slightly aggravating softness, like being bundled entirely in cashmere. 

“Why?”

“You know why.”

“I’m fine,” Corviel insisted. It wasn’t a lie if he believed it hard enough. 

“Yes, like you were fine when I pulled you out of that plague pit in the fourteenth century,” said Ezra. “I’ve learned my lesson, I’m not leaving you alone when you’re like this.”

“I’m not going to discorporate out of neglect in one evening.”

“If anyone could, darling, it would be you,” said Ezra. “Come now, dear, tell me where your coat is.” Then, coaxingly, “If you come with me, I’ll let you drag me around the Apple store after.” 

Corviel felt a despairing sort of fondness at being tempted with an apple, here at the end of the world. “It’s in the closet.”

Ezra gently pulled the top layer of Crowley’s hair back— it was long; he’d kept meaning to get it cut but with war looming, had decided to let it grow until he had to get it buzzed and go on assignment again. Ezra miracled up an elastic and put it up into a little half-bun. “Let’s get a move on, then.”


	4. Chapter 4

Ezra switched on the radio. BBC Four was giving the weather report. “Expect rain all evening, and a rain of hellfire for you, demon Fell! Where have you been?”

Ezra suddenly spotted a last chance at escape. He forced himself to sound cross. “ _Well_ , I like that! Here I am trying to get on with my work and I don’t have any instructions and the taxi I called up doesn’t have a working radio! Alright, says I, I’ll just get out and find a new car, but my _dear_ , you wouldn’t _believe_ what a wretched selection there was when I got out on Hampstead Heath. I make the best of a bad lot and try to take a 20s Bentley but wouldn’t you know, it belongs to an _angel_ and he’s _ever_ so cross about my trying to take his car—”

“What?” asked a demon, though the voice of a radio announcer. 

“Oh yes,” said Ezra, grimly. “It’s been _quite_ the evening, my dear, and no mistake! It was the angel Corviel, one of their front line fighters! _I_ am _not_ a fighter, I am a _tempter_ , and the best you’ve got! So I would like to know why _nobody_ came to my rescue when he caught me and chained me up in his bathroom? _Especially_ since I have the Antichrist?”

“Are you still chained up in a bathroom? Where is the Antichrist?”

Ezra’s thoughts clicked along busily, like beads on an abacus. He tapped a forefinger rapidly on the basket handle, as if trying to speed them on. “ _That_ , my dear, is the most worrying thing of all. The _Archangel Gabriel_ showed up and broke me free. He told me to begone and take the hellspawn with me.”

A pause, then a crackle of static and the sound of screams.

“This is Dagon, Lord of Torments. I was told you were captured and the Archangel Gabriel released you?”

“Yes.” 

“Where are you now?”

“In the car.” 

“What car?”

“The angel Corviel’s car! The one I tried to steal! The one the Archangel Gabriel told him to give to me! Does _none_ of this seem suspicious to you?”

Corviel had been sitting in the driver’s seat, or rather, slumped against the driver’s side door, with his cheek against the window and his hands in his lap. At this, he turned to look at Ezra with rekindled hope. Ezra put his hand on Corviel’s arm, half in warning, half in comfort. 

“Gabriel said nothing else to you?” asked Dagon.

“He said some things to the angel Corviel and made a _very_ opprobrious remark about the Antichrist’s scent, from what I could hear, but no, just begone, hellspawn, etcetera.” 

The faint sound of screams filled the car.

“Right,” said Dagon, slowly. “This is above my pay grade. Hold for Beelzebub zzzzemself.”

Ezra had by now had time to embroider up the story into something resembling the Bayeux Tapestry in length and complexity and grandly unfurled it before the Prince of Hell.

Even so, Beelzebub said, “We muzzzzt stick to the plan, Fell,” when he finished.

“The _Opposition_ knows, my lord,” said Ezra, exchanging alarmed looks with Corviel. “We shouldn’t go through with it if _they_ know, should we?”

“It doezzzzzn’t matter,” said the voice, “if they know the Antichrist hazzz been delivered— or will be delivered thizzzz evening. Nothing they do to prepare can stop Armageddon. They cannot stop the Antichrist coming into hizzz power in eleven years.”

“But, my lord Beelzebub—”

“They cannot stop _us_ , Fell. It is clear Gabriel himzzzzelf realizzzzes thizzz.” 

Ezra and Corviel shared a look. It was not a fun one. 

“What….” It had come out soft and rather tentative. Ezra cleared his throat, and drew on his usual defensive sparkle. “Yes, well, that still leaves poor little I in a beastly state of confusion. I first got into this mess because I needed to steal a car with a radio in it, in order to receive my instructions. So I really have no idea what I’m supposed to be doing here.”

“Take the Antichrist to the Convent of the Chattering Order of Zzzzaint Beryl, a group of Satanic nuns, in Tadfield, Oxfordshire. Give the Antichrist to one of the nuns. She will switch it with the child of Mrs. Dowling, the wife of the American cultural attaché.”

“What will happen to the child of the American cultural attaché?”

“Why doezzzz it matter?”

The same impulse that had kept Ezra from just killing the Antichrist as soon as he got him had caused Ezra to ask about the other child. He didn’t want to name said impulse and he knew Hell would not be kind if they knew said impulse existed at all. He blustered, “If it was going spare, I was going to ask if I could have it— I know a couple of couples who would trade their souls for a child. Waste not, want not and all.”

“It izzzzz immaterial,” said Beelzebub. “Do whatever you want with it.” 

“Thank you, my lord.” 

“Get going, Fell. You’re late as it is.”

Ezra faked a light and insouciant laugh. “Only _fashionably_ so, my lord Beelzebub.”

He switched the radio off.

“So,” said Ezra.

“So,” agreed Corviel.

Ezra looked into the basket. “I suppose… well. Onto Tadfield. Can you make your phone find it for us?”

“I’ll have to go get it from the house. Don’t you have the iPhone I gave you?”

Ezra patted his overcoat pockets and sighed. “Oh blast. I forgot. I did start carrying the dreadful thing on me, but I accidentally dropped it in the toilet at 10 Downing Street.”

“How?”

Ezra shrugged. “My dear, you know I have the most beastly bad luck with apples.”

After fetching his phone, Corviel came back to himself enough to plug the location in, and drive them both to Tadfield. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Ezra with the Bentley— well, yes, it _was_ that he didn’t trust Ezra with the Bentley. Ezra had no interest in technology unless it could be used to make new cocktails. If he got in a car, it would take him where he wanted, but Ezra wouldn’t think to even take off the parking brake first. 

Towards the end of the journey, Ezra looked over at him, drumming his fingers on the wicker basket. “You’ve been very quiet, darling. Are you alright? No chance of another episode like the one you had in the kitchen?”

“No,” said Corviel, who felt a sort of dull hollowness now. 

“Do you want to tell mother what caused that? It’ll make you feel better if you talk about it. It usually does.” 

Corviel rubbed his forehead. “It’s just,” he said, and stopped. It wasn’t ‘just’ anything. “The first time was bad enough.” His voice cracked. “Why do it again? And with the humans this time? If they get hit with a flaming sword, they don’t recover. What kind of a fair fight is that?”

Ezra looked away, grip tight on the basket handle. “What does it matter to heaven and hell anyways?” It was said with a great deal more bitterness than Ezra generally let himself express. “We had our battle. We fell, the humans fell. What more does anyone need? And the humans, the poor little dears— do they really need to suffer more than they do already? Their lives are so short and can be so hard! I hate to think that to both sides the dear, lovely little humans are just… playthings, on some diabolical chessboard.”

“Or some ineffable chessboard,” said Corviel. “With them advancing or getting knocked off in accordance with rules no one can follow.”

Ezra burst out suddenly. “Why can’t we just let the humans decide for themselves what to do with the world? They’ve got free will after all! There were memos upon memos about it when She introduced the concept, because no one could understand it.”

“ _Endless_ staff meetings,” agreed Corviel, shuddering. He’d been late on finishing the Helix Nebula thanks to those, and had to rush hanging it up. 

“Why do _we_ have to get involved at all?”

Corviel frowned at his iPhone. The screen had frozen and he was at a T-intersection. “Blasted thing. Turn onto the road— which direction?” He tapped the screen, with an irritated ‘rrrr.’ “Come on, tell me where I’m going.”

“Why _do_ we have to get involved?” Ezra repeated, very slowly. “Corviel.”

Corviel looked up from the phone. “Yeah?”

“Beelzebub let slip that only the Antichrist has the power to start Armageddon,” said Ezra. He turned to look at Corviel, his golden eyes gleaming in a sudden burst of illumination from the Bentley’s blinking turn signals. “If there’s no Antichrist, there’s no Armageddon.”

“But there is an Antichrist.” Corviel whipped around to face Ezra. “No. I don’t care if it is the Antichrist, I am not letting you kill a kid.”

“No, that’s something your side prefers to do. The flood, Egypt—”

“I can’t deny it,” Corviel said bitterly. “My side, my _bleedin’_ side—”

“I’m not suggesting we kill the Antichrist,” said Ezra. “I’m just saying... things on earth, they change. I’m not the same I was when I popped up to invent brunch. You’re not the same as you were when wielding a flaming sword _._ The human influences. They’re so potent. There’s so much free will about the place; it infects everyone.”

“We don’t have free will,” said Corviel, intrigued. “At least, we weren’t designed for it. I was created to be a warrior of the Lord—“

“You were created,” interrupted Ezra, “to make _stars_ , darling. You spun nebula into existence. _Michael_ gave you a spear and put you on the front lines. Not God.” 

Corviel sat staring at Ezra. The blinker lights kept flashing against Ezra’s face, dividing it in two, illuminating the left side and casting the right into shadow. Somehow this had never occurred to him. Corviel had spent six thousand years, give or take, as a soldier. He’d forgotten he’d ever been anything else. 

“And would a soldier, designed to be a soldier and nothing else, make an arrangement with a demon? That’s diplomacy, not war, darling. You’re not what they tell you you are. You have choices. You gained them, living here, working here. And they _say_ that in human development it’s really the _upbringing_ that counts….”

Corviel drummed his fingers against the steering wheel, an anxious mirror of Ezra’s nervous habit. “Are you suggesting that with the right human influences, the Antichrist could just… choose not to be the Antichrist?”

Ezra smiled. It was a smile of infectious charm, and Ezra wielded it in the full intention of being patient zero. “That is _exactly_ what I am suggesting, darling. And, at any rate, it would be up to the humans if they wanted the world to end or not.”

“If we were to… leave it up to the humans… how would we go about it?”

“That’s where I’d need your help, my dear. We’d have to deliver the Antichrist and then switch them around, so that the nuns think I’m taking away the normal baby. Instead, we’ll take back the Antichrist and place it with a nice, normal, _human_ family. Heaven and hell will focus on the child of the American cultural attaché, the Antichrist will grow up normal— and the two of us can monitor him. Make sure he turns out human. No one else need ever know where the real Antichrist is.”

Corviel hesitated. It was habit to think that he was being tempted into this, but he had had six thousand years to observe Ezra. This was Ezra’s debating tone, not his tempting one. Then, too, though Corviel had been put on earth as a foot soldier, over the last six thousand years he had risen to NCO status. In doing so, he’d absorbed every other sergeant’s distrust of the officer class. The Toffs What With the Epaulettes were always out of touch, and almost always wrong about everything. The trick with officers— or archangels— was not to upset their fragile understanding of the world. If you let them believe they were right, and were seen to be doing _something_ close to what they wanted, they’d let you get on more usefully with the real work it took to protect the men assigned to you. If you pointed out their worldviews for the nonsense it was, that was when you’d be ordered to march very slowly across no man’s land towards an enemy’s machine gun.

Corviel turned his phone off and then on again, shivering at the sudden puff of memory. He would die before allowing a second war in heaven. Especially if it would involve all the humans he’d been assigned to protect. 

A white apple with a bite out of it filled the black screen. He looked back up at Ezra. “I’ll do it.”

Ezra turned to him, beaming. “You will?”

“Yes. But if we are going to do this, we need to get the real Antichrist to his human parents ASAP. How do we pick them? Where would we find them?”

“We’re in Oxfordshire now, yes?” Ezra put his fingertips to his temple and frowned. “There’s… ah yes. There’s a local adoption agency down the road, if we turn left.”

“You’re certain?”

“It’s such a peculiar sensation of desire, it’s impossible to mistake for anything else. It’s so tinged with something I can… almost remember….” He opened his eyes and lowered his hands. “We’ll break in and find the most loving set of humans who won’t ask questions about a sudden closed adoption in the middle of the night.” 

Corviel rebooted his maps app. It still recalled their old destination, mostly because Corviel expected it too. 

“Turn right,” the app chirped helpfully. 

Corviel turned left. 

“Recalculating,” the app said coolly.

Ezra got them in and unerringly led Corviel to the right office, and the right filing cabinets, and then to the right files, plucking seemingly at random from the drawers. 

“Shit, we’ve left the baby in the car,” Corviel realized, as they were both spreading armfuls of files on a conference table.

“It’s the Antichrist, darling,” said Ezra. “It can survive a great deal more than being left in a car for ten minutes. I daresay it’s been compelled by its loving father to sleep until it’s been switched.” Ezra straightened the folders until they were all evenly lined up, and equidistant from each other. “I’ve pulled out the ones with the strongest whiff of desperation. These are people who won’t ask questions if they get a sudden call to adopt a newborn this evening. Now, my dear, I need _you_ to focus on these files, and find the one written with the most love.”

Corviel sat down and closed his eyes (1), hovering his hand over each file. “They all are.” It filled him with the bright softness of a newmade star. “So much love, in all of these. But… this one. This one feels the strongest.” 

He felt the file slide out from under his hand. 

“The Johnsons, of Tadfield, Oxfordshire. That’s right next to the hospital! Tell me, darling, when you said _strongest_ , was it because of proximity?”

“I don’t know,” said Corviel, frowning. “It’s just the one that tugged on me most.” Here Corviel said a word in ancient Enochian that caused any mortal that heard it to shudder with such ecstacies of divine love it inspired a whole genre of erotic, medieval mystic poetry. Even an occult immortal being like Ezra shuddered a little. “— it’s not a sense you can really fine-tune.” Corviel blinked. “Sorry, I slipped out of English, didn’t I?”

“Rather.”

“Is there a human word for it? The, uh… the… thing that lets you sense love.”

“I don’t know, dear, I broke mine in the fall.” It was said in a slightly brittle way. “I rather doubt the humans have a conception of all the dimensions necessary to explain the thing that lets you sense love.”

“You can’t…?” 

Ezra avoided Corviel’s eyes as he flipped through the file, in search of a phone number. “I have a very fine tuned sense of _desire_. I can tell what any being desires— and in some cases I can hone in on where someone is, anywhere in the world, just based on the particular shape and feeling of their desires.”

“Is that how you found me at Dunkirk?”

“Of course, darling. Your desires ah— were like a beacon in the back of my mind.”

“My desires,” repeated Corviel, nonplussed by this. “I’m not sure if I’m technically supposed to have desires.”

“You do, though. Whatever else you tend to wish was in the old kit bag, it’s accompanied by a lucifer to light your fag and a _very_ British wish for a cuppa char.” 

Corviel decided not to pursue this line of inquiry any further. It would take more energy than he currently had and, anyway, there were more pressing concerns, such as the Anrichrist sleeping in a basket in his Bentley. “What do we do now that we’ve picked them?”

Ezra plucked a business card out of his pocket. “Be a dear and call this number. I’ll arrange it so the social worker thinks it’s all ship-shape.”

Corviel did so, and Ezra crooned into the phone, “Hello? This is Dr. Fell from the St. Beryl hospital. We spoke on the phone earlier? Oh dear, perhaps it was your colleague, then, but I do have your card and all these applications for adoption from your agency— oh my _dear_ , everything is at sixes and sevens. You wouldn’t _believe_ the evening I’ve had. We’ve had a _very_ sudden delivery. The mother’s....” Ezra coughed. “Poor thing. She’s _not of this earth_ .” He paused. “Yes, yes, it is very tragic— but listen, we haven’t a name or ID for the mother, and the father’s out of the picture so we rather need to get this poor lambkin placed tonight. Yes. Closed adoption. Look dear, I know, but there _isn’t_ a birth parent available. The father? Lucifer.” He paused and gave a rather campy sigh. “Yes, I _know_ . Messy case, this, I didn’t want to pry but one does suspect, based on that, that the mother... yes. Exactly. Even if he could be found, we don’t want the poor little lambkin in _his_ custody. The Johnson family was selected. Yes. Give them a call, dear. I’m going off shift as soon as we’ve tidied up. I can take the child to them myself. Just give them a ring. Yes, you can give them this cell number. I’ll leave the appropriate paperwork with them and you can take a look at it tomorrow. Thank you. I _do_ appreciate your discretion and dispatch.” 

All in all, it was exactly ten minutes, which marked the first time that Ezra Fell and ‘time’ had taken accurate measurements of each other. It was a further twenty before they’d reached St. Beryl, they’d hashed out the rest of their plan. 

Ezra eased himself out of the car, completely ignoring the sight of a man dumping his pipe out into some bushes and heading inside. Corviel parked and took the basket. Ezra rapped on the back door.

“Master Fell!” the nun said with a gasp. She was holding a tin of biscuits. “My word, Master Fell, we were expecting you quite half-an-hour ago, but—”

“The forces of good interfered,” said Ezra. “I had to get, er, what’s it. That thing Americans are always getting, dear.”

“McDonald’s?”

Ezra searched his memory. “Backup. Had to get backup. Go get the Mother Superior, I’m here to distract the mother while my colleague here ensures the switch goes off.”

The nun did so. 

Corviel blinked. “She didn’t notice I’m an angel?”

“Do most people?” asked Ezra, fluffing up his curls. “But just in case, keep quiet.”

This was easy to do. St. Beryl was a chattering order, and the Mother Superior had been giving voice to every single thing that passed through her mind for over fifty years. After greeting them, the Mother Superior filled them in, very exactly, about what had happened that evening, adding in some random stray thoughts about when the carpet had last been cleaned, and the observation that _Corviel_ looked the more properly demonic of the pair of them but oh well, it takes all sorts, doesn’t it?

“I couldn’t distract Mrs. Dowling looking like _that_ ,” said Ezra, with affected horror. “You’ll need to put up a bit of a fuss as I go in, and keep my friend here from entering with me. Then as soon as one of your nuns brings the Antichrist in, cast us both out.”

“Understood, Master Fell.” The Mother Superior raised her voice. “You can’t possibly go in, sir, she’s in labor.”

“Then she’s bound to need a cocktail isn’t she?” asked Ezra, sweeping in grandly. The Secret Service men and nuns all turned to stare as Ezra clasped his hands to his chest and exclaimed, “Oh my _dear_! I came as _soon_ as I heard. I was at the most lovely party and then… oh who was it? I don’t remember. But it seemed like everyone was saying, did you hear poor Mrs. Dowling went into labor when she was touring an airbase or something all the way out in Oxfordshire, and with Thaddeus in America—”

A very angry woman glaring into a video camera looked up in panting confusion. Ezra sensed her pain, her desperation, her absolute fury at her absent husband, the aching vulnerability manifesting itself as rage, her desperation for support and for love—

He swanned in to take a chair by her bed and to take her right hand in both of his. “Oh my poor sweet, how long have you been pushing and pushing away without anyone to hold your hand? I would have come sooner, but I had a few too many martinis and the boyfriend wouldn’t let me drive, and then I thought, well, shouldn’t she have some healing crystals and I _had_ to pick some up—”

“Who the hell are you?” came a voice from the camera.

“Your wife’s dear friend Ezra!” said Ezra, as Mrs. Dowling grasped his hand and squeezed. The secret service men looked uncertainly at each other, their hands still on their weapons. “What a _jokester_ you are darling, forgetting you met _me_. What a funny man Thaddeus is, isn’t he, love?”

Mrs. Dowling had known Ezra as ‘the gay guy who always shares the coke in his make-up compact at boring cultural events’— but then she thought, in a sort of dreamy, abstract state she decided was a side-effect of the epidural, it was probably because _of_ the coke that she’d just forgotten all the soul-baring conversations they’d had. She’d seen Ezra ever so many times, and yes, he didn’t call or text but he was a known technophobe who kept losing or breaking his phone, and he was here with her when no one else was. He cared about her and her pain and he was going to make things better for her. He was her _friend_ . He’d shown up so she wouldn’t be alone. All the memories of their past interactions were recast in a sort of hazy glow. Yes, this was her dear friend Ezra, whom Thaddeus _absolutely despised_ , and goddammit, Mrs. Dowling was going to keep Ezra with her. 

“Yes,” said Mrs. Dowling. “Thaddeus is just _full_ of jokes.”

Corviel, hanging back by the door, watched in admiration, tinged with affection, as the world bent around the force of Ezra’s personality. The secret service men lowered their hands, and the videoconferencing cultural attache said, sulkily, “Ha ha. Just trying to break the tension, honey.” 

Ezra patted her hand. “Maybe a little champagne—” 

“You may keep your friend with you, Mrs. Dowling, but I won’t have all these foreign substances coming into the delivery room,” said the Mother Superior. “It’s unsanitary! And champagne, at a time like this, absolutely not—”

“Perhaps some healing crystals? Dear Gwyneth gave me a jade egg that’s supposed to do…” Ezra waved his free hand. “Something.”

“No. No jade eggs. Out now, out! I think it’s time for the final push.” 

Corviel let himself be swept out. The nun who had first opened the door came rushing over. “Is that the Antichrist?”

Corviel nodded, drifting in her energetic wake. 

“Oh what a sweet little man,” she gushed, taking the baby out of the basket. “I was expecting a little taily-waily, or teensey little hoofie-woofikins. But instead he has some lovely little toesie-wosies. You don’t take after your daddy, do you? Do you take after your daddy-waddikins?”

He didn’t really, thought Corviel. Corviel wouldn’t have been able to distinguish the Antichrist from any other human infant.

Which unfortunately proved true.

“Hurry it up then!” hissed a nun, coming out behind them with a newly wrapped and screaming bundle from Mrs. Dowling’s room. She dashed passed them and went into a room. “We are ready to make the switch!” 

The nun took her time taking Corviel to a room with a baby in it. As his beat tended toward “some corner of a foreign field/ That is for ever England” Corviel had very little experience with, or understanding of non-military hospitals, or anything to do with babies. He assumed the child in the blue blanket was Mrs. Dowling’s. He watched as the nun cooing over the Antichrist’s toesie-wosies wrapped the Antichrist up in a red blanket, put him down on the left of the other baby, and then turned her back to get something from a closet. 

The facts as Corviel understood them were these: the Antichrist was in a red blanket on the left. The Dowling baby was in a blue blanket on the right. Corviel, not realizing that there could be more than two babies at the hospital, switched the two blankets and then went to stand guard in the hall, by the door of the room. 

The fact Corviel did not know was that Arthur and Deidre Young were in room three of the hospital, and Deidre had just given birth. There were, in fact, three babies at the hospital. 

“Where is the Antichrist?” asked the nun with Mrs. Dowling’s child, from the private side room to the nursery, where she had been weighing and cleaning up the Dowling child. “Hurry up sister Mary Loquacious, we’re almost ready here!”

This caused several things to happen, much like a trick they do with three cards. Round and round the babies went:

  1. Sister Mary Loquacious, thinking the Dowlings were in room three, picked up the child she had placed on the left— that is, the blue-blanketed Adversary, Destroyer Of Worlds, and Angel of the Bottomless Pit— and took it to a different private room to weigh and measure it. 
  2. The nun with the Dowlings’ child assumed that Sister Mary had left the Antichrist in the nursery. She set down the Dowling child, and took the red-blanketed child— i.e. the son of Arthur and Deidre Young— to Mrs. Dowling.
  3. Corviel, seeing a nun go back towards Mrs. Dowling’s room while holding a red-blanketed infant, assumed the switch had worked, and followed, to make sure nothing would go wrong. 
  4. Sister Mary Loquacious took the Adversary, Destroyer Of Worlds, and Angel of the Bottomless Pit to the Youngs.
  5. The actual Dowling child remained in the nursery, wrapped in a green blanket. 



After a sufficient amount of cooing, and Ezra popping a bottle of champagne miracled into the now babyless hamper, the Mother Superior insisted Ezra depart. “You must name the child and rest, Mrs. Dowling. No visitors.”

Ezra patted Mrs. Dowling on the arm. “I’ll motor on back to London. Don’t try to call, darling, I lost my phone again. So tiresome! But I’ll pop round with a basket of all the things you couldn’t eat while pregnant in three days time. Ta, love.”

After waiting for the doors to the hospital room to swing closed, Ezra turned to Corviel.

Corviel nodded.

“Well thank _someone_ that went alright. Where’s the, ah… other child?”

“Down here.” Corviel took him to the nursery, where Sister Mary Loquacious had returned to hunt for her missing tin of biscuits. 

Ezra carolled out, “My dear, we’ve come to take the spare and be on our demonic way. Is that him?”

Sister Mary sprang up and nodded. “Yes, it is— spare baby right here—”

Corviel was deeply baffled to be presented a child in a green blanket. “Did you change him?” 

Sister Mary Loquacious, thinking Corviel meant, ‘did you give the Adversary to the couple in Room 3?’ replied, “I did! And very quickly too. I don’t think I have ever changed a child that quickly before, although I am not really in the habit of changing children so how quickly I _have_ changed a child is—”

“Oh how splendid, my dear,” Ezra smoothly interrupted. “We must get going now. Thanks ever so.” 

Fifteen minutes later, Ezra and Corviel were in the cosy set of rooms the Johnsons lived in, over their antique shop in Tadfield. The angel and the demon had with them a child they assumed was the Antichrist, but was really the child of Mr. and Mrs. Dowling. The Johnsons did not care. They were of the opinion that their most desperate prayers had been answered. They were so full of love and joy that Corviel actually and involuntarily smiled. 

Ezra couldn't sense love, the same way Corviel did, but he certainly _saw_ it, in the delight and care the Johnsons took over their child, and in the way Corviel, an angel made up seemingly of all angles, softened around them. Ezra was further delighted to be given a Regency snuff box as a thank you gift from the happy new parents. 

“We have an excuse to check in now,” said Ezra, studying it with pleasure as they drove back to London. “Driving to Oxfordshire on a free Saturday afternoon, to go antiquing? It’s the sort of thing a Dr. Fell would do. And it worked, darling, it _worked_! This was rather a splendid plan of mine, wasn’t it?”

As it was, Ezra’s plan did work. 

Just... not how he intended. 

But he wouldn’t realize that for another eleven years.

  1. Corviel didn’t bother reading them. The devil was in the details. Meaning, he trusted Ezra to have read them for pertinent information about location, financial solvency, and the like. 




End file.
